Posts Tagged ‘Vanquish’

Think of one of the best cars in the world, The Aston MartinVanquish, fine British styling, and excessive power, try to imagine a better edition of it, it would be the works of Q departments. Zagato intervened too to make it look better, and the Zagato Vanquish was made. It seemed that it wasn’t enough, therefore, there is a new born baby of the Zagato and Aston Martin’s collaboration which is The Aston Martin Zagato Vanquish Volante.

Aston Martin and Zagato go way back, it is almost 60 years that the British and Italian giant collaborated. It all started with the 1960 Aston Martin Zagato DB4 GT, then it went further with models like 2002 DB7 Vantage Zagato and 2011 V12 Vantage Zagato. Now two models are added to the equation, the Aston Martin Zagato Vanquish, announced earlier this year, and the Volante model. For those who are not accustomed to the Volante nomination it means roof bye bye. The Zagato Volante was introduced in the Peeble Beach auto show.

The exterior doesn’t differ from The actual Vanquish and the Vanquish Zagato. The car comes with more aerodynamic lines, The Z badge on the sides is quite remarkable, and seems like being spawned from a carbon-fiber tub. The carbon-fiber covers the lower body parts, skirt, rear air splitter. The hood had classic Zagato lines, with two large air vents. In the rear, there are the same round tail lights on the coupe using Aston Martin Vulcan led technology. It is all in blood red, with gold styling.

The Zagato Volante nests inside it a monstrous 6.0 naturally aspirated engine, with power tweaks to raise power to 592 bhp. Testers calculated stop to 100 kph to be around 3.7 seconds which is 2 tenths faster than the standard Vanquish Volante. It is expected that the car will reach 197 mph top speed ( 316 kph) and why not go over the 200 mph bar.

The interior expresses comfort, luxury and high quality thanks of the works of Q department. The car is 2+2 seater, with beige leather covering. The Z badge is encrusted on the headrests. Options include anodized bronze detailing and herringbone carbon-fiber usage. Zagato announced working on just 99 units, each unit will go north half a million dollar as a price tag, pretty steep isn’t it?

Aston Martin, future AMG partner, will be present in the Peeble Beach Concours d’Élégance as well, next to its British rivals, Land Rover, and Jaguar, announcing four new toys with and major technical upgrades : The Aston Martin Vanquish, Vanquish Volante, Rapide S, and DB9 Volante, we will be more interested in the Vanquish Volante

All the four cars had the courteous improvement from Aston Martin’s in house tuner, Q, not much will be noticed on the design, either in the inside or the outside of the car, only new colors will be brought to scene, but, the cars received mechanical improvement. The most noticeable one is the new 8-speed automatic transmission. Brought by ZF, the new Techtronic III transmission replaces the old, noncompetitive 6-speed auto. Another improvement, is the new transaxle mounting of the gearbox. Q reduced also exhaust gas back pressure, giving the Vanquish Volante 3 more bhp, to total 568 bhp. An impressive 0.5 of a second will be gained in the 0 to 100 km/h time, reducing it to 3.8 seconds, thus, it becomes the fastest accelerating Aston Martin car.

The car will be fitted with the same 6.0L V12 engine, but with a new Bosh management system, more accurate fueling, it produces now 630 Nm of torque. The improvement on the gearbox, especially in the final gear ratio, can make the car top 200 mph (320 kph).

Economy wise, the new transmission improvements, increase fuel economy, reduce CO2 emissions. combined fuel consumption is 31 mpg and CO2 emission decreased from 335g/km in the old Vanquish to 298g/km

The car will have new suspension, with stronger tare, uprated Bilstein dumpers : 15% in the front and 35% for the rear, stiffer anti-roll bars and upper-wishbone bushes at the rear. Bigger new front brakes will be mounted too. The assisted driving system will be revised, si will be the Dynamic stability control, to improve driving performance on the road.